welcome to your new addiction. Does it turn into a vastsnow covered plain in winter? for a ski mounted mini

Kemosabi said...

... The ice boat guys have the right idea... No blizzard blowing in your face, just clear ice to run on.

I guess thats good so long as you know the spots where it might be thin!

I have a question for you sail experts. Without a boom mounted bottom third of the mast, what prevents sail cloth from gathering into area of greatest tension behind the mast?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here ya go:

The red line on the drawing is where the main tension is ... this is caused from the sheeting system (blue).....
And yes you are right to get the maxium from the sail it should match the mast and mast flex...

Hiko said...

A sail board sail has more curve in the luff [mast side ] and the sail board boom pushes the mast forward and flattens the sail
If you use a conventional boom on a sailboard sail you need to flatten the curve of the luff to get rid of the excess cloth in the area you descrbe
Land yacht on this forum has written an excellent post on how to recut sailboard sails to suit landyachts to overcome this problem
look under "How I recut sailboard sails to suit land yachts" in the construction section
Matching sails and masts to each other is something of an art All part of the fun!

have a read as Hiko says . If you need a sail maker to do the sewing , tellhim /her to just trust us on the instructions. I drew those instructions after about the 10th sail.
remember , thiis fun

A simple rule of thumb check you can do on your battens is to place the thin forward [luff]end against something solid and push the thick trailing [leech]end toward it making the batten take up an airfoil shape
You will find a surprising thing happens
The batten will resist this push taking up its shape and then go easily
The point of maximum camber should be about 25 to 35 % back from the luff and the pressure should be somewhere around 2kg before it goes soft
You can measure this with a kitchen scale or a fishing spring scale or similar
The 25% should be say at the top batten and the 35% at the bottom but 30% for all would be fine
If your battens are fairly near these figures then I would say they are OK
If not then they need to be sanded down if too stiff or replaced if too soft
I am sure experts will have more sophisticated methods and figures but I dont think you will be too far wrong if you follow the above

See the fun just keeps coming!!!!

The wave sails tend to be quite flat and stiff.
I would suggest laying the sail out flat and comparing the luff curve to the measurements in the plans. If they are close it may not be neccesary to recut. you may get away with a softer set of battens as hiko suggested .
. Any chance of a photo of the sails laid flat o we can compare them?

No problem Hiko and I appreciate all the input from everyone. I'll get a pic of my sail so you guys can have a look and tell me what you think about re-cutting the mast curve etc.

Some good news:
I had my first good sailing experience yesterday. Nice, steady wind about 12mph blowing across my test track. Had a great time sailing back and forth for about 2 hours. My test track has some of not-so-good things, such as; too small, isn't always angled right for the wind, etc. I discovered a good thing though; while sailing at dusk I realized it has street lights. I can run at night!

Sail #1: I already un-picked the mast pocket, mostly just to see how hard it would be. Turns out it only took about 20 minutes.

You have a couple of good looking sails there I think
Here is a picture of my Class5 landyacht sail [5.25 sq M] laid on top of a windsurf sail to show the difference in the luff curve between the two
The mast this suits is a fairly stiff aluminium one though and you would be best
advised to follow the advice of land yachts post on recutting sailboard sails I think
Good luck should work out great

No more worries if my machine is up to the task... Say hello to the newest member of the shop:




Been looking for one of these for years and finally found a good used machine at a good price.
Over the weekend, I cut and re-sewed sail-1. Looks like it's good to go now, but I'm still curious; When fully sheeted, Should the battens lay to the side of the mast at all, or be directly behind?

Now that most of the bugs are worked out on this frame, I decided it was time to put some paint on it before it starts to rust. My son was having a good time shooting primer. Later I finished it in bright yellow.

so proud of your efforts guys! given that your off and racing I would give fsome thoughts to some side rails on that seat,even rope with some tubular padding, if only to avoid future gravel rash.
if the battens are still on the side of the sail when fully sheeted, this would suggest either too stiff a mast or still too much luff curve.
Photo would be good. sailng venue looks excellent. how did the sewing machine go?how many layers will it hammer through?

Wheels are another item on the list. The last afternoon of sailing thrashed all my bearings, but I didn't expect them to last very long anyway. Without access to Fallshaw, I'm forced to think outside the box. These aircraft wheels look like they would work pretty good:

Wow, they look great!! Hmmm... I wonder how much postage to Aus would be??